Celebrating women for a greater good.

How wonderful to have an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements….and how timely to do so on International Women’s Day, celebrated every year on March 8th.

At the start of the year, we had Tracey Curtis-Taylor, the female pilot who featured prominently in the media, when she flew a bi-plane from UK to Australia in a successful attempt to become the second woman to fly single-handedly in an aircraft with an open cockpit – something not achieved since Amy Johnson’s famous flight of 1930.

In February, we had the indomitable Cox Crew…a four strong female crew who managed to be the first female crew to row the 8,446 mile voyage across the Pacific in 257-days from the United States to Australia, rowing 24 hours a day in two-hour shifts.

I applaud all women, who through the ages have challenged perceptions of female capabilities by achieving massive feats of endurance and strength and inspire other women to do the same.

International Women’s Day, has been observed since the early 1900’s and is growing annually from strength to strength. The official website (www.internationalwomensday.com) explains: No one government, NGO, charity, corporation, academic institution, women’s network or media hub is solely responsible for International Women’s Day, and there is a far wider motive than celebrating women’s achievements. This year, the focus was gender parity on a worldwide scale…..Gloria Steinem explains:

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights….International Women’s Day is all about celebration, reflection, advocacy, and action – whatever that looks like globally, or at a local level.

So the day seeks to highlight a challenge in addressing serious, and often life-threatening issues on women’s lives worldwide whilst, at the same time celebrate women’s achievements.

Action and celebration are two perspectives almost impossible to combine under the umbrella of one cause and one day.

On March 9th, Sarah Vine in the Mail, gave a controversial warning against the danger of the day being hijacked by organisations and individuals with vested interests, rather than addressing the wider issues and thus improving “the lives of women trapped in slave labour, underneath veils or in cultures, where the law and religion is stacked against them’

this poses a dilemma…….not to belittle the amazing achievements of women, but indeed recognising the potential for broader issues to be overshadowed by the celebrationof our women achievers!